MMFF2022: Nanahimik ang Gabi, Labyu With an Accent, My Father, Myself

 

Me-Ann (Heaven Peralejo) is living the life. She's gone to a secluded retreat house to meet her policeman lover (Ian Veneracion,) whom she calls Chief. The night begins innocently enough, though Me-Ann feels that something is off. She isn't given much time to contemplate the situation, however, as a mysterious crazed intruder (Mon Confiado) enters the house and holds the two of them hostage. The specter of self-interest plagues the three characters of this movie from beginning to end - it is only through successive acts of empathy and understanding that an avenue of possible escape becomes apparent.

Shugo Praico uses the suspense thriller to interrogate the roots of systemic corruption in institutions meant to protect us. It becomes clear soon enough that Chief isn't the most virtuous of people, but he isn't just a singular bad apple. Instead he's the product of a culture that rots people like him from the inside, and it's made evident in how his initially by-the-book, idealistic character transforms into a facsimile of the man he hates the most, his father in law (Allan Paule, in a short but standout role.) 

Mon Confiado's character, then, is a cipher. Why is he here? Is he telling the truth? Or is he just a crazy liar, just as bad or even worse than Chief? Praico is careful not to hurry along the plot, opting instead to peel back layer after layer of information, changing our perspective of each of the three central characters, playing on expectations and revealing just enough to make things interesting.

Then there's Heaven Peralejo, in her first lead role. Despite being a relative neophyte she is able to match her two experienced co stars beat for beat. Her character seems naive and trusting, perhaps too much for her own good, but the screenplay cleverly twists that notion into a critique of selective justice and impunity, in that some people are content to stay silent if justice is meted in their favor, following the words of Edward Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". To overlook injustice when it tangentially helps you ultimately damages all of us, though that is easier said than put into action: if your house is on fire and someone offers you a functioning fire hose, do you consider the intentions of the person offering, or do you use that hose? The film's third act illustrates how the answer to that choice isn't always easily apparent, and how people are often fooled into not doing the right thing. 

Through the years we've seen Rodel Nacianceno (a.k.a. Coco Martin) evolve from an independent film actor to a mainstream superstar to a filmmaker. In that last regard, though he's made some significant strides in MMFFs past, he's still got a long way to go. Labyu With an Accent, written and directed by Martin, is a strange film. Incomplete is not exactly the word to describe it: it has all the things that should make it work, but something always feels just a bit off. 

For starters, the film's meet cute feels outlandish and inadequate. Trisha (Jodi Sta. Maria) has her heart broken after she finds her fiancée Matt with another woman. She returns to the Philippines where she meets Gabo (Martin), a stripper who runs a rent-a-boyfriend service on the side. Curious, she tries the service and the two fall in love. At least, that's what the film desperately wants us to believe. Though Martin imbues Gabo with a fun yet charming goofiness, the two don't feel like a legit couple: Trisha seems to be just going along for the ride, and is more bemused than anything else. Writing good romance is far more than inserting random kilig moments. The relationship has to be believable to work, and the moments have to build up well for any emotional payoff to work in the end.

What follows is just as strange, the film building upon boneheaded decision upon boneheaded decision with frightening intensity: Trisha returns to the US, noncommittal on the state of her romance with Gabo. Gabo, on the other hand, seems to be doing an any% speedrun to get into a relationship with Trisha and rushes over to L.A. (on a tourist visa, mind you!) to begin their relationship. Trisha's parents don't like Gabo and the two of them leave and settle in an apartment. Gabo, the epitome of toxic masculinity masquerading as traditional values, disallows Trisha from getting work of her own. Instead, he tries to work a bunch of jobs (all of which are illegal because he's on a tourist visa??) and gets fired every time because he's either not suited for the job or someone narcs on him. At one point someone calls ICE (the immigration police, also wearing the wrong uniforms!) to catch him, to no avail. It's a miracle Gabo isn't sent to Guantanamo or something.

The script is half-baked, and could have benefitted from a couple more revisions (or fifty). To be fair, the film does touch upon a couple of interesting topics, but the film also gets in the way of its own ideas. Trisha is a member of the diaspora who falls in love with a fellow kabayan who stays home, and that could make for interesting dynamics. The problem is Trisha's family doesn't feel like an immigrant family. Trisha could have lived in a random posh neighborhood in the Philippines and the film would have changed very little. Trisha herself, the reason behind the film's title, has an inconsistent accent and doesn't sound like someone who has spent most of her life abroad. In fact, compare her to Gabo's female cousins, even Donita Rose's character - they sound different somehow, and the reason why is not easy to articulate. Trisha could easily find a career of her own in the Philippines - why not live there with her grandmother instead? It would have solved most of her problems and it makes the central conflict of the third act contrived.

It's a noble effort and Martin seems to have the resources to further hone his craft. I hope he continues to do so.

A few months ago, I watched a JAV titled "A World With Exceptionally Low Hurdles to Sex." It must have been a popular title because there have been at least nine of these and I was watching the sixth in the series. The film is exactly what it says on the title: this is a world where the concept of moral or ethical boundaries do not exist, and anyone can just have sex with anyone else at any time. Want to bone that cute cashier at the mall? Go ahead, they're game. Want to lick that tootsie roll you met while riding the bus? Just make sure you get off at the right stop. Wanna give your family members some extra vitamin D at the dinner table? Just wait a sec I'll just set aside the soy sauce, don't wanna get my shirt stained aaaaaand let's have a healthy nutritious meal. It was all presented so semi-seriously and came off as so patently ridiculous that I kinda forgot to jack off and decided instead to see how far they'd take the concept. Let's just say the human imagination is both wondrous and terrifying at the same time.

Sometimes there comes along a film so ridiculously horrendous, it's hard not to avert your eyes from the ongoing disaster. Joel Lamangan's My Father, Myself is more than any simple car crash, however: this is watching three burning dumpsters full of shit loaded onto three trucks, all colliding with each other in the middle of a crowded children's parade, mowing down several dozen pre-schoolers along the way. "A human brain conceived this?" I started to wonder, but then I remembered cursed anime does this all the time. Maybe Joel Lamangan watched some hentai and wanted to get in on the action.

Robert (Jake Cuenca) is a human rights lawyer. He's so dedicated to his job that in his office there's a poster that says "Human Rights" on it. Joel Lamangan is keen to make sure that we know that fact. Because soon enough, we learn that maybe the most important human right is the right to sexytime your adopted children.

Robert takes in his adopted son, Matthew (Sean de Guzman) after Matthew's dad, Domeng (Allan Paule) gets gunned down in what I can only call a float by shooting - a duo of masked guys slowly float over to Domeng as he's giving a speech and shoot him in the chest. Instead of running over to the river (canal?) to catch the bad guys, a crowd forms around Domeng's corpse because of course they would. The elementary school-aged Matthew settles in and Robert and his wife Amanda (Dimples Romana) treat him like a son... at least, one of them does.

There's something My Father, Myself doesn't tell us in its promotional materials, and that is the fact that there are actually TWO pseudo-incestuous relationships in this film. Robert and Amanda have a daughter, Mica (Tiffany Gray) who wants Matthew to give her some brotherly love. During their first meeting, Mica gives her new brother a "Hi, Matthew!" before panning to several studio pics of the child, then panning back to Mica as she says "Hi, Matthew!" again. The fact that she said it twice clearly means she needs 3 tablets of Matthewcetamol every day during meals.

Years pass and it's clear that the Westermarck Effect does not exist in this universe as Mica's still got the hots for Matthew. He's trying to push back against it but isn't averse to sexytime here and there with his sister. What's weird is that their university friends seem to be shipping the two of them together, even though they explicitly grew up as brother and sister. After looking at their bar exam results (which seems to imply that like twenty two people took the bar that year instead of tens of thousands) Mica leans in for a kiss that Matthew quickly rebuffs.

While Matthew and Mica struggle to tell their parents the truth, it looks like Robert's favoritism of his only son is more than it seems. The two of them are actually in love with each other, as Matthew reminds Robert of Domeng, with whom he had an affair before he died. Robert even takes out a shoebox nd reminisces with a 6x9 glossy photo of Domeng, because in this universe, all photographs are taken professionally at a studio. (A selfie? what's that?) The film treats this doomed father-son romance as some sort of tragedy, overlooking the fact that Robert basically groomed Matthew all these years because he looks like someone he had sex with. Robert even laments at the end the fact that he couldn't live a life that's true to himself. Look dude, the issue is not that you like other men, the issue is the fact that YOU WANT TO BOINK YOUR SON IN THE ASS BECAUSE HE LOOKS LIKE YOUR DEAD LOVER!

The sheer audacity of this premise boggles the mind, and it also boggles the mind that no one ever in the course of making this film thought, "hey, maybe this isn't such a good idea." My Father, Myself is the funniest, most hilarious comedy of the MMFF - perhaps the funniest comedy in this festival in many years, and is highly recommended to be seen with friends, drunk and laughing, with rationality and reason borked out of your minds by intentional intoxication.

MMFF 2022: Deleter, Partners in Crime, Family Matters

 

Social media has fundamentally changed how we perceive the world and how we look at our fellow human beings. With cameras readily available to anyone with a phone, each event, whether innocuous or not, becomes a spectacle to be shared with the world. But even social media platforms, as selective as they are, are curated behind the scenes: content moderators filter almost everything that gets posted on social media sites, deleting videos and images that are violent, salacious or exploitative. But no human being can tolerate humanity in its most unfiltered, primal form for too long and people cope with that in various ways.

For Lyca (Nadine Lustre),  the images or videos of people on her screens are no longer people. "They're data," she tells someone, referencing Stalin when he said that "the death of one man is a tragedy. The death of a million is a statistic." In order to not lose her own humanity, she ironically dehumanizes the people she sees on the screen. She is no different from the people gathering around and taking pictures of a dead corpse on the street, not thinking that this was once a person like them. 

Deleter is less a film about content moderation and more about how we lose empathy for others because of an overwhelming surfeit of information. There's too much going on that it's hard to care for any one person, and for Lyca, it just takes one person not cared for to change her life for the worse. Mikhail Red merely uses content moderation as a setting to tackle a larger, even simpler, message.

And, unfortunately, that's the thing that prevents Deleter from becoming good or even great. Fundamentally the film is flawed - to reduce, dismiss or lightly touch on the many complexities tackled in the film makes the whole affair a tragic waste of potential. There is much horror to be had within content moderation and in the content itself without resorting to a superficial ghost story: the dilemma of sharing the truth vs withholding that information, the fine line between moderation and censorship, the various economic factors that force people into content moderation in the first place, the mental stresses and lack of psychological support, and even the drive for people to produce and consume disturbing content in the first place. 

Nadine Lustre carries the film and it is relatively well shot, but the darkened office spaces even during work hours stretch disbelief - in an office with late shifts, it's only common sense that a bright, well lit workspace helps with fatigue and eyestrain. Besides, effective horror can still be achieved with white, sterile office lighting. The horror is hit and miss - one scene where an otherworldly apparition types on a keyboard for some reason is more funny than scary, while another scene near the end that builds on anticipation and fear is one of my favorite scenes of the whole year.

Deleter is a film built on questionable decisions. It's not as bad as I thought it would be - I think in the greater scheme of things, it's an okay film. The problem is it had the potential to be a great film, and that's honestly a shame.

Jack (Vice Ganda) is a successful host with a successful show. Unfortunately, in the process of getting famous, he had to leave his hosting partner Rose (Ivana Alawi) behind. The two reunite under less than auspicious circumstances and compete in order to interview the country's richest man, Don Bill (Rez Cortez).

Among Vice Ganda's body of film work, Partners in Crime sadly ranks below the average. While there are some parts that are entertaining, it's not as entertaining or even as funny as some of his best MMFF films. It's not all bad, however, as there are some things that the film does well or okay: Ivana Alawi is a surprisingly competent foil to Vice's character, and there is effort to some of the visual gags, especially in the challenge rooms.

As for the not so good stuff, where do I even start? The script reads like it was written by children, which I guess tracks for an allegedly family-friendly film. Then again, I did chuckle a bit at a few raunchy penis and sex jokes, especially when I heard those jokes while children are running around the cinema. Sex education for our children is a good thing, so I hope y'all talked to them after the screening. The middle part of the film drags a lot and is honestly pretty boring, and a lot of character development feels shoehorned in, making the eventual emotional payoff feel forced.

The film feels like it's drawing from some of Vice's personal experiences in the industry, and the moral lesson is to be considerate of others, be transparent when dealing with colleagues, don't step on others while advancing your own career and that forgiveness for those who are regretful for their sins is a virtue. The fact that Vice has repeatedly included fellow comedians and up and coming actors in these MMFF films is a testament to the fact that Vice walks the walk. There's some value to Partners in Crime for fans, but for everyone else, it's an affair that many will likely forget until the next Vice film comes along in the next MMFF.

It's a strange yet kinda apt coincidence that a day before watching Nuel Naval's Family Matters, I watched Zahim Albakri's Split Gravy on Rice (2015/2022), which is also a film about an aging patriarch who gathers his children and resolves various family problems in the process. Ultimately, thanks to a strong script and fully fleshed out characters, Family Matters is in my opinion the better film, and (so far) my favorite MMFF 2022 film.

Family Matters follows a family drama formula that's been a staple of MMFF films past, though there's a little twist in this film: Francisco (Noel Trinidad) and Eleanor (Liza Lorena) do some house hopping to each of their children after their daughter and primary caretaker (Nikki Valdez) leaves for the US. While visiting their children's homes, the couple (and the audience, by extension) learn of each family's situation and respective problems. Perhaps the most consequential to the story is that of Kiko (Nonie Buencamino,) Francisco's eldest who struggles with work and problems with family.

Because the characters are fully fleshed out and well written, the relationships between them (and the conflicts that arise) lead to an abundance of material to work on. There's nothing particularly tragic or overdramatic in the film because it doesn't need to do any of that: it stands on the merit of its simple, yet engaging character dynamics.

The entire ensemble cast is competent, even wonderful in their roles, with Nonie Buencamino and Ian Pangilinan being standouts. The film is shot rather conventionally, but there are a couple of drone shots at the beginning and end that are quite impressive, as if the DP was trying to flex (and for good reason).

However, with an abundance (or an overabundance, even) of material, the film struggles to wrap things up. The film is half an hour too long, and a lot of character conflicts could have been resolved more succinctly (for example, a relatively shocking moment in the film's third act serves only to bridge the gap between two characters, is ultimately unnecessary and could have been replaced with a shorter scene.) A certain shot into the sunset would have been a great place to stop the film, but there's still 15 minutes left of trying to tie up loose ends! Sometimes it's okay to not tie everything up in a cute little bow, though watching these characters is such a treat that all that superfluous time is mitigated a bit.

In a festival billed as catering to the family during Christmas, I think Family Matters, a film that celebrates all things family with all its warts and blemishes, is a fine addition.

I've been working on my book. Here's an excerpt.

Riding on the Waves of Life, I Watched a Thai Crown Princess and a Con-Heartist Sing a Yeng Constantino Classic

The humble pap smear is the workhorse of any pathology practice. Invented in the 1920s by Georgios Papanicolau and improved over the following decades, it has been used to screen certain types of cancer, especially cervical cancer. And if my colleagues are to be believed, it is the one part of specialty practice that many pathologists dislike. Why? Pap smears, especially ones that are conventionally prepared, take a lot of time to examine. Depending on the experience and skill of the reader, a typical pap smear can take anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour to interpret. One would typically receive around ten of these, even more. And the payoff? Before rates were standardized, it was not uncommon for the professional fee of one smear to cost around 50 pesos, and I’ve heard unsubstantiated horror stories from colleagues that pegged the price even lower. It’s a lot of effort for very little renumeration. But each slide is a patient waiting for a result, and the work has to be done. For people just starting out their practice, procedures like pap smears are their lifeblood. In fact, some of that sweet, sweet cervical money helped finance this book.

As a fresh diplomate, reading pap smears was one of my first jobs. One of my most prominent pap smear gigs at the time was in a clinic in Makati, where I went to the lab in the late afternoon or night twice or thrice a week and interpreted smears. Reading pap smears is a very boring activity, so one tends to listen to podcasts or watch something to distract from the drudgery, but not divert one’s attention too much as to affect the work. Luckily, outside our little lab was a TV that had either GMA or GMA News TV on. During work, or while waiting for the slides to be processed, I’d go outside and watch a few shows or just listen in from the inside.

It was then that I started to watch a Thai drama called Waves of Life. Based on a 1982 novel of the same name, the show is the third adaptation of the source material, with adaptations reaching as far back as 1983. The premise is as follows: a popular albeit misunderstood actress accidentally runs over a woman while driving a car. In previous adaptations, this is due to substance abuse; this latest drama attributes the crash to something more sinister. The poor woman dies and leaves behind her fiancée, who swears revenge on the person who killed the love of his life. But revenge isn’t as simple as it seems.

Waves of Life, and other Thai TV programs like it, are what is collectively called lakorn (which is just the Thai way of saying ‘TV drama’.) Lakorn have existed ever since the beginning of Thai television; the first lakorn aired in 1956, just two months after the establishment of the first Thai television station.

Unlike their Filipino counterpart the teleserye, which usually lasts for half a year to a year’s worth of half hour/hour-long episodes, a lakorn usually spans around 15 feature length episodes over the course of a couple of months, in structure more closely resembling a K-drama.

What attracted a lot of Filipinos to Waves of Life is of course its central couple: Mark Prin Suparat, who played Sathit, the fiancée of the dead woman, and Yaya Urassaya Sperbund, who played the misunderstood and kind-hearted Jeerawat. Both have extensive careers in TV, however both have only a handful of movie credits to their name. Filipino fans treated them as they would treat any local love team, and their popularity only grew from here.

Waves of Life is strengthened by great performances not only from its central cast, but also its supporting cast members. That said, the show is not perfect by any means: it’s limited by its television budget and the show is full of filler moments. For example, in one scene, our main character Jeerawat gets into a tickle fight with her friend Dao (Nuttanicha Dungwattanawanich) because the latter wanted the former to try a foot bath she bought for her.

Regardless, almost as naturally as breathing, I became a fan of the show. When I wrote a novel in 2018, a sprawling, meandering work of sentimental pap, I based some of the characters on the people and actors from Waves of Life, thinking that in the extremely unlikely event that my novel would get adapted, I would cast them in those roles. It is entirely irrational, but this is how a fan is created, I guess.  

Waves of Life would be followed up with The Crown Princess, which paired Urassaya Sperbund with her main onscreen and real-life romantic partner Nadech Kugimiya. Sperbund plays Alice, the titular princess of a small country called Hyross, who runs afoul of potential assassins on the day of her coronation. She is whisked away to Thailand, where she meets Davin (Kugimiya), the hunky Navy commander assigned to be her bodyguard. The show, while more action packed and less romance oriented than its predecessor, proved to be even more popular than Waves of Life. At the time, of course, I had no idea how popular these two were in the Philippines; I remembered that on the same year local cinemas screened Brother of the Year, a fine yet ultimately forgettable romp starring Yaya and Sunny Suwanmethanont. Sunny visited the Philippines earlier that same year to a rather tepid response, so when it was announced that Yaya would visit next later that year, I expected the same kind of response and went, expecting a small crowd.

What happened instead taught me a valuable lesson: never underestimate the fervor of a local fandom. I arrived in what I thought would be a reasonable timeframe – two hours before the scheduled start of the program. When I arrived, the line for the show reached all the way from one end of Ayala Malls Circuit to the other – approximately 300-500 people long. People had been lining up since 7am – long before the mall opening. The place was absolutely packed. People had made streamers, posters and fans with Yaya’s face on them. There were actual regional chapters of her Philippine fan club on there! Regional chapters!!

I think no one was more surprised that day than Yaya when she finally arrived at the stage. Neither she nor I expected a crowd this huge. After the day’s proceedings she promised she would return again, and told all of us that she had a couple of lakorn on the pipeline. 

Four years later, she would make good on that promise, returning to the Philippines with Nadech in a paid event at the New Frontier Theater. I was still a fan, and four years after that fateful day many things had happened in the interim. Nadech recently starred in The Con-Heartist (2020), a caper comedy co-starring with Baifern Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul (herself a well-known Thai star in the Philippines, thanks to her breakout hit Crazy Little Thing Called Love (2010)). Yaya had roles in a handful of series here and there, but also starred in what is probably her best movie to date: Nawapol Thamrongrattanarit’s Fast & Feel Love (2022). In it, she plays Jay, a woman with no dreams of her own who devotes her life to support Kao (Nat Kitcharit), a professional speed stacker in his 30s. Jay’s been a fan by choice for most of her adult life when she suddenly realizes she wants something else, and departs. 

It’s kinda strange how reality and fiction intersect, doesn’t it?

I went to Araneta alone. The news outlets talked about how the president’s approval rating as still pretty decent, even though our economy was tanking and the prices of goods were soaring. I joined a bunch of people inside the theater, having paid for the ticket with an option for a meet and greet - one paid for by honest to goodness pap smear money. I had brought along a copy of my book – the book partly inspired by those lazy nights reading pap smears and seeing the two of them – and gave them to the staff, with them promising to send over my gift to the duo.

Despite the tickets in the higher tiers being relatively pricey, a substantial amount of people sat in the premium seats. This was the first time I was in the company of people who understood my interest in this couple, and I totally get the sense of community that we got from our communal appreciation of these two actors. A few years before we talked with various members of local fandoms – Noranians, Vilmanians, Sharonians – as part of an episode of our podcast Third World Cinema Club that never materialized. What was evident in those interviews was the passion and commitment these people had to be able to pay tribute to their idols. My two seatmates were a pair of bank workers in their forties or fifties who came all the way from Mindanao. They’d gone off work earlier that day, gone on a plane all the way to Manila, and planned to come back the next day in order to rest for Monday’s work. One of them even had custom bags made with Nadech and Yaya’s picture on it. She took out a pentel pen and showed it to me, telling me that she intended to have the bag signed.

“To tell you the truth,” one told me conspiratorially, “I’m a fan of just Yaya. I prefer her paired with Mark (Prin, her Waves of Life co-star.)”

Contemporary fandom is, by nature, closely intertwined with human history. As social animals, humans tend to group together and form ‘tribes.’ It’s an evolutionary advantage; being social gives us access to support and resources and helps us survive. Many etymologies of the word “fan” have been proposed over the years but my personal favorite is the proposed origin from the word “fanum” or shrine, its devotees afflicted with an insatiable frenzy. Performers and managers who recognize this human desire to idolize construct a public self that they present to fans and audiences – a confluence of meticulously crafted outward facades with a tinge of one’s private life that, when done correctly, is irresistibly addicting because it feels just real enough. Creators and artists also cultivate a relation with fans, where the distance between someone and their fan gets particularly close, perhaps too close for comfort. This is done via various fan events that are often very interactive and personal. (Fan events like the one at the center of this essay.) Often, parasocial relationships are created here, in good and bad ways.

This phenomenon has existed for many years, perhaps as long as performances and performers have existed – and the phenomenon takes many different forms worldwide. The British engage in what is essentially state-sponsored idolatry in the form of the royal family, where politically powerless figureheads on the British taxpayer’s payroll have their lives scrutinized and observed in great detail by the media.

We have already partially discussed how Filipinos engage in fandom, but now let us talk about how we engage in our creation of love teams – basically, our version of shipping (in fanfiction parlance, rooting for two people to get together romantically).  However, these relationships, regardless of whether they are real or not, are crafted by movie and television studios in order to make bank on whatever productions will star the couple. The most extreme version of this is Aldub, the pairing of Maine “Yaya Dub” Mendoza and Alden Richards that stemmed from an organic moment on the daily noontime program Eat Bulaga. The showrunners of Eat Bulaga recognized the potential of this moment and paired the two: in subsequent episodes of the series, Eat Bulaga’s Kalyeserye would depict the two courting each other and getting into a relationship, even going as far as to show an actual (fake) wedding. Years after the two have moved on, with one (Mendoza) engaged to someone else as of this writing, there is still a small but significant portion of the fanbase that still roots for the original love team, spreading QAnon-like conspiracy theories that Richards and Mendoza are actually secretly married with a hidden child. The line between admiration and obsession is very thin.

In India, movie stars (especially action stars) are revered and idolized, sometimes in extreme ways. Rinku Kalsy’s For the Love of a Man (2015) is a documentary about the fans of movie actor Rajinikanth, whose larger than life persona reminds one of our own obsession with Fernando Poe Jr., only on steroids. In one scene of For the Love of a Man, a peanut seller mortgages his wife’s jewelry (worth around 40,000 Philippine Pesos) for a fan event he is helping to organize with utmost conviction in his eyes. You know that if he had the chance, he would do it again. In the eyes of some of these fans, Rajinikanth is a God.

Perhaps no society has taken full advantage of the fan’s relationship with their chosen idol than the Japanese. A prototypical example is Yasushi Akimoto’s AKB48 and its many sister groups. Formed in a small theater at the top of a Don Quixote in 2005, Akimoto conceptualized AKB48 as an idol group whose idols you can meet. But the circumstances of those meetings are heavily controlled by management: tickets are a very limited resource and are given out in a lottery system (believe me, I’ve tried.) Picture taking is prohibited, and pictures of your preferred idol are usually only sold in the theater or through third party sellers. Commoditizing human interactions is probably the unholiest of unions between capitalism and human nature. Idols are presented to the public as pure and virginal ideals for fans to worship, even though the real person behind the façade is less than ideal. Satoshi Kon recognized this quite presciently in his opus Perfect Blue (1997), way before social media evolved into its present form. When the pure façade is cracked, fans often lash out in violent ways. Some idol groups have an unspoken “no dating” rule, and idols who have that rule broken have some fans that make a show of destroying their merchandise. For the poor idols who dared to have a relationship, some are suspended, some leave the group voluntarily, and some respond in extreme ways: Minami Minegishi shaved her head and publicly apologized after having been pictured coming out of her boyfriend’s apartment – an innocuous act for the rest of us, but a cardinal sin in the world of idols.

The social capital artists gain from these interactions are prone to exploitation as well. Some people have leveraged their popularity as actors and actresses into political careers, an act that is not exclusive to the Philippines but one that has made a significant impact on our society.

Here in the New Frontier Theater, however, most of the interactions are good natured. Nadech and Yaya finally came out, and a continuous, rapturous wave of screaming commenced. Members from the VIP section started flocking to the empty seats of the VVIP section, to the exasperation of security and ushers. The security people tried to direct them back to their seats, but it was no use. The people in the VVIP section let their fellow fans join them, and the hierarchies separating us broke down.

Yaya and Nadech each have a song number of their own, then they go on to answer fan questions. This is where the interactivity reaches its peak, and the duo feels comfy with the audience. Of course, there aren’t a lot of weird questions (i.e. when are you getting married?) because the two of them choose the questions from a board. Nadech says that he wants to visit other places in Manila, and for leisure instead of for work. Someone in the back loudly suggests that Nadech visit their house, which was met by laughter. Of course, Nadech wouldn’t really visit that fan’s house, but perhaps the point is that the fan knows that he knows that the fan wants him there. 

Yaya and Nadech ended their song numbers. The next segment was a punishment game, a Dating Game-style affair where one would ask questions to the other, and see if their answers lined up. If the answers didn’t match, the loser would pick a punishment to perform. The “punishments” aren’t really punishments: expect no Fear Factor style centipede eating here (though the audience did tell the duo about Balut). Most of the punishments were innocuous, like eating polvoron or Chickenjoy (the audience loved that), or singing a few lines from their favorite songs. We all had a good laugh when Nadech kept drawing the sexy dance punishment.

For the final act, Yaya and Nadech came out in traditional Filipino attire: a Terno and a Barong Tagalog, respectively. As a surprise treat for their fans, they sang Yeng Constantino’s hit song Ikaw. This, despite them knowing only a few words of Tagalog.

At that moment, I considered the thoughtfulness of this performance. When I came here, I thought, why did they come here in the first place? They could have totally stayed in Thailand and did their thing there; a lot of their Filipino fans would have gladly made their way there instead. An actor or actress’ free time is very limited and precious, yet they went here and performed for us, even though the pay would probably not be worth the trouble. Their performance wasn’t perfunctory, either: there was genuine effort in what they did today. 

For a moment, I thought fans were the pap smears of an artist’s work: numerous, endless, and exhausting work almost not worth the cost. But for most people who perform, for most artists… indeed, for most professionals, they understand that art has to be seen and experienced, and fans are the conduit through which the art transforms from a lone action into something deeply shared between art and observer. Much like there are patients waiting for their results, fans exist to be able to view the work, and the work has to be done.

I do not know if my books reached Nadech or Yaya, or if they’re stored in a box somewhere far from their minimalist homes, or if the staff neglected to give them the books in the first place and just chucked them in a bin. As a writer, it is my utmost desire for my works (as any writer would) to be read and not just sit idly in a shelf, gathering dust. There’s an argument to be made about art should be created for art’s sake, and there is truth to that, but without readers I would be stuck in my own world, and without fans and supporters, an artist performs alone, in the dark.

After the program ended, I lined up with the rest of the people who opted for a photo-op, where we would go in groups of ten. My seatmate from earlier took out her homemade bags and prepared to have them signed, but a security guy stopped her, saying that it wasn’t allowed. He was about to take away her pentel pens, but she offered to put them back in her bag. She looked disappointed at the fact and sheepishly walked forward in the line.

It was finally my turn and we went up to the stage to “hi-touch” the two – hi-touch being a fancy K-pop term for a high five. I had planned to say something to the both of them but was tongue tied when I faced Yaya, even though I was, echoing the words of that person from The Dark Knight Rises, a pretty big guy. I only managed to blurt out a thank you before she curtly moved on to the next person.

I then approached Nadech and said the same thank you, but this time, I mustered the courage to say a few more things.

“I brought you guys something. A book,” I said.

Nadech seemed interested at what I said. He began to tell me to give the gifts to his agent, pointing to the side of the stage. I was about to explain that I actually gave them to the staff, but the security people noticed and started interrupting me, saying that giving anything right now wasn’t allowed (even though the item wasn’t with me). I figured that the security people weren’t looking for an explanation and it wasn’t a good look to be dragged out there, so I relented. I said my goodbyes and after taking the photo, our group was ushered into a side corridor into what we all thought was an anteroom, perhaps for an additional meeting. As the first of our group, I opened the two doors at the end of the corridor. It turns out that it was the exit – and we all found ourselves unceremoniously dumped on the street where we all went our separate ways.

Throughout the performance, I had to remind myself over and over that, even though these two are good artists, and even though it looks like the two of them are the nicest of people, they are not our friends. They do have a relationship with us, but the distance between fan and idol will likely never go away. To shake away the illusion of intimacy in a relationship that is ultimately a parasocial one is difficult, but every fan owes it to their idol to remember this fact. Whether in art, or in religion, or in politics – the people we admire are just that: people, as flawed and as lovely and as glorious as you and me.

The first thing I did when I went home was to hang Nadech and Yaya’s signed poster on my cabinet, next to a poster of Roderick Lindayag’s Dito Lang Ako (2018). Sometimes, when I pass by the poster, I half-jokingly touch it like a devotee touching the Santo Nino while passing by the statue. Sometimes I ask myself, if Nadech and Yaya ever came back for another show, would I be there? 

I honestly think I would.

QCinema 2022: Joyland, Ajoomma, Close, Nocebo, To the North

 

Haider (Ali Junejo) lives with his wife, his brother's family, and his father in a compound in Lahore. The family is deeply conservative, as many families in Pakistan are. Meek and soft spoken Haider is pressured to get a job and "be a man," whatever that means in his father's mind, while his free-spirited wife Mumtaz (Rasti Farooq) is made to quit her job in order to begin making babies. Haider soon finds a job as a backup dancer for a Mujra, Biba (Alina Khan), who also happens to be transgender, and falls in love with her.

Joyland is anything but, finding its characters in all sorts of metaphorical (and even physical) prisons. Many other reviews have used suffocation or asphyxiation to describe this social pressure and it's not hard to see why. When society actively prevents you from becoming what you want to be, it feels no different than drowning, being denied the air that one needs to stay alive.

Through Haider and Mumtaz's gazes, there is a longing that persists, a longing for something that has been denied them. Within that longing is a tremendous feeling of loss for phantom lives that could've been lived out had things been a little different. In spite of its almost unrelenting bleakness, Joyland's final shot is that of the ocean, in contrast to the oppressive buildings and alleyways of the rest of the film. It is a prayer, perhaps, for freedom, however temporary.

The titular Ajoomma of the film of the same name is trapped in a different, metaphorical prison of her own: living alone, and with her only son in the process of emptying the nest, she is left with very little to do, other than watch K-dramas that make her live out alternate lives. A trip to South Korea, however, is set to disrupt her life and mostly in a good way.

There is such a large burden placed upon women, especially in Asian societies, especially traditional or conservative ones. The burden of caregiving - whether towards children, spouses or parents - is placed on their shoulders, so much so that they have little time for anything else. Almost in opposition to that, after caregiving duties are done, there is little that can help fill in the loneliness left in its wake that time for self care seems worse than what women like our protagonist has already lived, even when it's not.

The film is not perfect by a long shot. Ajoomma's journey may be a little far-fetched and whimsical in parts, sometimes so much so that it strains disbelief. But it leads to some heartwarming, crowd pleasing moments, and I think the payoffs more than make up for those flaws. 

Lukas Dhont's Close has a premise whose simplicity only enhances its emotional power. It's a story about two boys, Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) who  are two best friends, probably  ever since childhood. Their first scenes together are of them being boys, and there are obvious signs there that the two may be closer than most.

Once school starts, however, Leo pulls away from Remi, in an effort to become more like the other boys. What happens next is predictable but no less heartbreaking. Societies that shun male intimacy end up with a generation of men who have difficulty expressing their feelings.

And it is in the expression of long held feelings where the second half of the film dwells, in the particular pain of being too late to apologize for mistakes, to make amends for those mistakes, to profess one's love, Though these feelings of regret are generally universal, there is a specificity to them that speaks true to queer experiences, and Close masterfully expresses that pain.

Christine (Eva Green) designs children's clothes for a living. After a supernatural encounter, she begins to experience strange symptoms. Conventional medicine seems to have little to no effect and she's at the end of her rope... that is, until Diana (Chai Fonacier) suddenly appears at her doorstep. Christine doesn't remember hiring Diana as a nanny, but Diana insists, and tells Christine she can help her. 

Nocebo deftly explores the way the actions of the first world trickle down into the third world, as innocuous as these actions may seem at first. Much like the parasites that plague Christine's body, Christine herself and her ilk parasitize and suck the lifeblood of the workers of the third world. Her symptoms may be seen as the manifestations of guilt that may not be consciously perceived as guilt, but is felt all the same.

There was a bit of buzz regarding Chai Fonacier's depiction in this film, ironically from people who only saw the trailer and drew their own conclusions. But Nocebo's filmmakers know what they are doing: Diana is a fully formed character, shaped by her own history and by events in small and large scopes. She is driven by a deep seated anger, rejecting any western standards or expectations of what she is supposed to be. While the other members of Christine's family look at her with suspicion, we wonder if that suspicion stems from genuine concern or it it is not also rooted in stereotypes or racist beliefs.   

While the way things play out are predictable, Nocebo does it quite well, and comes with my recommendation.

Based on real life events, Mihai Mincan's To The North is a languid yet deeply introspective exploration of altruism, faith and human nature. Set in a container ship on its way to the northern part of America, it stars Soliman Cruz as Joel, a seaman who comes across a stowaway on one of his ships. He looks at the stowaway, Dumitru (Niko Becker) with trepidation: prior to his discovery, at least three other stowaways, including Dumitru's friend, had been thrown overboard to a watery death.

As the film is anchored mostly only on this premise, it's understandable that it runs the risk of being stretched out. The film is admittedly not for everyone. For me, at least, its slow burn makes the proceedings all the more tense, as Joel and his crewmembers try to hide Dumitru before the Taiwanese captain and his first made find the stowaway. Most of this hinges on a spectacular performance by Soliman Cruz, one of the best (if not the best) character actors in Philippine cinema today. His presence on the screen is a tour de force, and it is worth the price of admission.

The film's denouement ends abruptly, but it does touch marvelously at the themes it is trying to present, in that altruism for the sake of doing good as opposed to assuaging guilt makes these moral decisions more gray that it looks on the surface, and that the dark side of trying to do good is that the person you might be helping might not reciprocate in kind. In the face of this irrationality, faith (whether in the innate goodness of people, a higher power, or whichever you may think) may be the only thing that spur one to do so.

QCinema 2022: Love Life, Angry Son, The Divide

 

Taeko (Fumino Kimura) and Jiro (Kento Nagayama) are happily married. They live together in an apartment with Jiro's parents and Kenta, Taeko's son from her previous marriage. A horrific accident disrupts the life of her entire family, and in the process, Taeko is reunited with her ex-husband, Shinji (Atom Sunada), who disappeared when Kenta was two years old.

At first glance, it seems that the characters of Koji Fukada's latest film Love Life speak to each other with relative ease. They apologize for their mistakes and express their feelings to each other relatively freely. In an early conversation, a misunderstanding between in-laws is quickly resolved with little incident. But as the film goes on, it is made abundantly clear that this is an illusion; despite this seemingly transparent setup, there are still many things that are left unsaid between husband and wife, between parents and children. In his previous films, Koji Fukada has used the disruptive energy of an outside force to challenge norms and expectations in Japanese society. In Harmonium (2017,) a family unit is completely deconstructed thanks to a horrible tragedy; in A Girl Missing, the titular vanished girl triggers an intrusion and an unhealthy obsession that tests the protagonists' patience and decorum for far longer than they should.

Fukada's usage of these story tropes is far more benign here: despite being centered upon a horrific tragedy, there is a surprising amount of levity, especially in the film's third act. Yet even in the end, the film's catharsis is not achieved by open and honest communication, but rather the acceptance that there are some things that are simply left unsaid, and that is okay. Fukada gained inspiration for Love Life from Akiko Yano's song of the same name, the final track of her 1993 album, also with the same name. Throughout the song, the singer tells the person they are speaking to that regardless of anything, just their presence will make things okay:

もう何も欲しいがありませんから、そこにいてね。

"I will no longer desire anything, just be there." And sometimes, that's all we really need.

A small anecdote before I begin: during my last trip to Japan, my cheap hotel was situated right in the middle of Kabukicho, one of Tokyo's red light districts. One night while I was on my way home, a drunken man had scaled up the top of one of the buildings, prompting police to arrive. A large crowd of onlookers had gathered, making it difficult for me to pass through to my hotel. I then noticed a middle aged woman standing outside one of the bars in the area; she caught my eye and tried to bring me to her bar, talking to me in Japanese. I immediately realized that she worked at a Filipino pub. I humored her for a short while and responded to her in kind. After a few minutes I finally switched to Filipino. "Filipino po ba kayo? (Are you Filipino?), I asked. Her face lightened up immediately. As the police pried the drunken man from the rafters of the building next to us, we talked for a while about her job (she'd been there for 20 years), how she supports loved ones back home, and the kinds of customers she encounters. When the crowd cleared up, she bade me goodbye. "Mag-ingat ka pauwi ha, (be careful going home)," she told me, as if I were her son. That's a memory I will never forget. 

Angry Son's title befits its main character: Jun (Kazuki Horike) is prone to fits of anger, mostly because of his frustrations towards his identity and his mother, Reina (Maria Theresa Gow), a Filipino pub hostess who is the complete opposite of the stereotypical Japanese mom. As a half Japanese, half Filipino boy, he feels like he doesn't quite belong, wishing he were fully Japanese instead. He also doesn't quite understand why her mother exerts so much effort towards relatives far away, when they have more than their share of problems at home. Add that to the fact that he's gay and in a relationship with his classmate Yosuke (Masafumi Shinohara), in a Japan that is only beginning to accept such relationships. The intersections between Jun's racial identity and his sexual orientation form the majority of the film, as Jun tries to search for his long lost father and tries to understand his mother better.

This is a film about people that are struggling to be heard and seen, sometimes in more ways than one: the Japanese title of the movie is 世界は僕らに気づかない (sekai wa bokura ni kizukanai), "The World Doesn't Notice Us." It is only proper to be angry at a world that barely acknowledges that you exist in the first place. But there is room for love and understanding in this place: Jun and Yosuke's parents are accepting of their situation, with concerns about their sons' future finances being more of an issue than anything else, and the film's denouement makes anger give way to love, understanding, and catharsis. It's a wonderful film, buoyed by strong lead performances.

Raf and Julie are a couple living in France. They are on the verge of a breakup, and from the very first scene of Catherine Corsini's The Divide it's easy to see why: Raf is needy, clingy, and impulsive. In the process of trying to salvage their relationship, Raf slips and fractures her elbow - just in time for the escalation of France's Yellow Vest Protests. There, they meet a collection of characters from all walks of life, all of whom have their own opinions on what's going on outside. In addition, everyone involved either sees or experiences how dysfunctional and overworked some government systems are. Fractures don't only involve bones: as this film shows, relationships between people and society itself can just be as easily divided.

As the film's mostly obnoxious characters interact with each other and gain a tentative understanding, a weird sort of solidarity starts to form. This, despite a cornucopia of varying political beliefs from right to center to left, fueled by discontent, political indifference or disillusionment. A seemingly cold, indifferent system that disregards the working class is how populist movements like the yellow vests gain traction, and as such The Divide's small emergency room becomes a microcosm that emulates society at large outside. 

The film ends with its characters trapped in circles, sometimes circles of their own making, and sometimes influenced by the larger sociopolitical milieu. Even when its characters go their separate ways, the rotting systems that fueled their prior disillusionment still remain. Like the central malady of one of its protagonists, fractured bones seldom heal completely and will usually never be the same again.

QCinema 2022: Eo, Saint Omer, Plan 75

 

In traditional depictions of the Nativity, an ox and a donkey accompany Joseph, Mary, the three Magi, and the newborn Jesus. I has been said that Mary entered Bethlehem on a donkey, as these animals were a common mode of transportation for the poor at the time. In the nativity, the donkey looks on blankly, perhaps a witness (or a representative?) of humanity at large. Such is our relationship with beasts of burden: tools used for granted and rarely considered as fellow creatures of the earth, creatures whose sentience (and by extension, agency) is unclear and/or taken for granted. Nativity imagery abounds in Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), about a donkey who is given to multiple owners, a film about which Godard said, "is really the world in an hour and a half."

Jerzy Skolimowski's EO follows the same basic idea as Bresson's film, but does away with the spiritual imagery for the most part. It, however, delivers no less of an experience with its simple, minimalist aesthetic. A moviegoer related that it feels like if Malick made Tree of Life with donkeys, and I kind of understand where they're coming from.

Eo's titular character is a donkey working in a circus. One day, the circus gets borked and EO gets repossessed and sold to a different owner. Eo then goes through a journey going from one person to another, with short vignettes about the circumstances of the humans he comes across or is otherwise involved with. Sometimes those humans can be kind, some can be unbelievably cruel. Some treat EO kindly but have issues of their own or among fellow humans. This isn't Hollywood; Eo's not voiced by Chris Pratt or some other celebrity to give him an inner voice. Aside for some glimpses of a human who treated him kindly in the circus, we don't really know what Eo thinks - we merely project our own thoughts and desires onto him. Much like Godard's assessment of Bresson's film, Eo shows humanity as it is, holy yet savage, living contradictions, and deep down, animals all the same.

In Alice Diop's stunning narrative fiction debut, Saint Omer takes us into the proceedings of a trial involving Laurence (Guslangie Malanga), a French Senegalese woman accused of a horrible crime. It is fiction based on reality, as Diop based the movie on her own experiences attending the trial of Fabienne Kabou, who was accused of the same crime. 

Diop's avatar is the pregnant novelist Kame (Kayije Kagame,) who intends to write about her experiences here. The film is framed mostly austerely, with each witness testifying and relating their experiences. Laurence's testimony is erratic, making it hard for the audience to understand her situation. But we find that the circumstances behind the crime are horrifying to most involved: as the film goes on it is quite clear that Laurence wasn't treated well by her partner, and she breaks mentally under the stress. This perhaps is also Diop's intent: as a documentary filmmaker, she needs to understand her subjects in order to create her films, but the process of empathy is not as simple as one may think. To create empathy, people often draw on their own past experiences; there are parallels to Rama's relationship with her mother and her identity as the child of an immigrant to Laurence's situation.

The way the film is shot frames not only the subject, but us as well: as the audience, we too judge Laurence on her words and actions. Saint Omer is many things: an exploration of women, the relationships that shape, bind and destroy them, and a reflexive look at the art of filmmaking. Diop also interrogates the process of observation itself, and how in the process of understanding someone else, we reveal our own prejudices to the world.

Like the previous film I discussed in this slate of reviews, Plan 75 is also based on horrific, true events: in 2016, a man killed 19 people in a care home in Sagamihara. His main motivation for the attack was the idea that the elderly and disabled were a drain on society. This film begins with a fictionalized version of that attack and a curious question: what if some of the killer's ideas were institutionalized?

In the not so near future, Japan institutes Plan 75, where people of that age or older can opt for assisted suicide. The plan by itself isn't inherently bad (other countries have instituted similar options) but it is in the implementation and details where the problem lies. Astute viewers might already have made the connection between the program and the mythical practice of ubasute, where the elderly are left by their children on a mountain to die so that they would no longer be a burden to the family. Although framed by its architects as a noble, dignified act of sacrifice for the good of the many, the way the dead are treated afterwards makes it feel more like unfeeling, commodified senicide.

Michi (Chieko Baisho) is a recently retired hotel worker. While the oft repeated mantra is that Plan 75 is optional, various social circumstances, attitudes of Japanese society (or at least this particular version of it) and her own intense loneliness push Michi to consider the program. Her thread is one of many that explore the ins and outs of the Plan 75 program: Hiromu (Hayato Isomura) is a kind of salesman who gets people to sign into Plan 75 who is suddenly met by his long lost uncle (Takao Taka) who wants to join the program, while Maria (Stefanie Arianne) is a Filipino caregiver who shifts work to the program in order to pay for her daughter's surgery. 

Plan 75 explores the question of the value of one's life, and how individuals act on that perceived self-worth. It also shows how the societal systems we create influence that self-value. It's clear that not all of the elderly people in the film want to die, but are made to do so because they have no choice either way. Michi considers several alternatives to live or work after her retirement, but any social welfare opportunities for people like her are getting scarce. Her support system is virtually non existent, as most of her friends are either dead or unable to help her. Whether intentionally or not, people like Michi are left with no choice.

Things all throughout are pretty bleak, but there is a sense of fierce determination at the end, that every life has its worth, that while some choose to end it all, some choose to live on to see the sun rise one more day.

QCinema 2022: The Sales Girl, QC Shorts, You Can Live Forever

 

My experience with Mongolian cinema is admittedly limited; having only seen historical films and quiet dramas, I went into Janchivdorj Sengedorj's The Sales Girl blind and I came out of it having watched one of the most unique films I've seen this year. The Sales Girl borrows, appropriates and reshapes various films to create a quirky, playful film that is more than the sum of its parts.

Saruul (Bayarjargal Bayartsetseg) is a college student who fills in for a classmate who broke her leg in banana-related shenanigans. She goes to work in a sex shop, where she quickly befriends Katya (Enkhtuul Oidovjamts), the eccentric owner of the shop.

Perhaps it would feel appropriate to call The Sales Girl a sex comedy, but it's only a small part in what eventually becomes Saruul's metamorphosis from a meek and withdrawn girl to a more confident, more self assured young woman. Her journey takes her to many different places, from her sexuality to her eventual life path to how she sees herself - a search for self in which the film finds its heart.

In one scene, Saruul comments on her friend's dog Bim. "He doesn't look like a dog," she says, as if the concept of a dog belonged to one thing only. This question of self identity manifests itself as contradictions in the main characters, in people being someone they're not: Saruul studies as a nuclear engineer but she has a penchant for art and drawing. Katya's character feels like she has no care in the world, but deep down she is a deeply hurt woman who has cared too much. And in the setting, The Sales Girl shows an increasingly industrialized and modernized Mongolia that is still deeply conservative.

QCinema QCShorts Competition Shorts Short Reviews

Before I start I'd like to acknowledge the selection jury who selected these films; each of the six films share thematic elements that make it feel more cohesive and not like a random assortment of shorts.

Before films were recognized as legitimate works of art and cultural artifacts worth preserving, they were considered disposable entertainment. I imagine people started actively preserving films because a particular film evoked something in them, as many works of art do. That scenario plays itself out in Jaime Morados' Ang Pagliligtas sa Dalagang Bukid, where a man tries desperately to rescue a film that he loves, breaking the barriers between fiction and reality. The film, as rough as it is in places, has its heart in the right place, its somber ending a dirge for experiences that exist only as fading memories and vague recollections.

A reflection of pandemic anxieties, Whammy Alcazaren's Bold Eagle frames its shots via the same peculiar, cellphone-like aspect ratio seen in Never Tear Us Apart (2018), its voyeuristic gaze fixated on bodies in various states of contortion and undress, almost daring us to look (or look away).  But while his previous film deconstructed the ironies of the family unit, this one finds more thematic kinship with his earlier film Islands (2013), its protagonist trapped in an 'island' not of his own making, as the idyll of a cozy beach taunts him from outside his window, he finds solace in small screens that remain his sole connection to the outside world. 

A disclaimer: I contributed to the crowdfunding for Glenn Barit's Luzonensis Osteoporosis, though prior to its premiere I had not seen it. Having seen the film, without any bias I can say that my contribution is not in vain. Essentially an OFW film but told in Barit's whimsical, surreal style, it's a reflection on the people who break their backs (sometimes literally) for this country by going abroad, and the economic and societal forces that push them into it, whether they like it or not. 

Rocky De Guzman Morilla's Mga Tigre ng Infanta begins with an anxious rumbling that seems to resonate with its protagonist, Katrina. Upon visiting the wake of her grandmother, she feels an itch that only grows worse over time, as the land she calls home is encroached upon and forcibly transformed by people with capitalist interests. Even from the start the film links these vast ancestral lands and the bodies of the people born from the earth that they rightfully own: just as the land is subjected to unspeakable violence, there are bodies that are transformed, bodies that are mutilated, bodies that disappear.

A similar transformation can be seen in Austin Tan's Ngatta Naddaki y Nuang? where two friend traverse altered landscapes and people in search of a carabao. They both find that it is far more difficult to pick up the pieces of something that doesn't exist in the same way anymore, in terms of memory, spaces and people.  

And finally, JT Trinidad's impressive the river that never ends has its protagonist, Baby (Emerald Romero) working for various clients, often filling a role or donning an identity that is not theirs: a placeholder for a lost loved one, a dancing partner, even a pet. Like Mga Tigre ng Infanta, there is a juxtaposition of spaces and bodies, here relating to rapid urbanization, the emergence of poverty in those spaces and the many ways that poverty inflicts violence upon the people who live in those spaces. Baby is framed in a backdrop of vast industrialized landscapes, in spaces that have changed over the years, in a city that feels unfamiliar and depersonalized. One can only wonder how Baby (or anyone, for that matter) can prevent themselves from disappearing into the noise.

Jamie (Anwen O'Driscoll) is a high schooler who moves in with her aunt and uncle after the sudden death of her father. As her aunt and uncle are both Jehovah's Witnesses, they invite her to activities together, because of course they'd do that. During one of these meetings, she meets Marike (June Laporte), and the two strike up a friendship. However, it is made abundantly clear that both parties are interested in other ways.

In many queer (love) stories, religion is something of a paradox. For belief systems that talk about love, it is ironic that some of the deepest, most intense kinds of love are forbidden; for belief systems that talk about truth, it is ironic that people are forced to live behind lies and not acknowledge what exists in plain sight. As Marike and Jamie's relationship deepens, a thought crossed my mind: is this affection genuine or is Marike being duplicitous, setting up a honeytrap? What eventually happens touches upon the ironies of faith and love, in that there is a kind of faith that is so deeply rooted and all consuming that people are locked into certain patterns or thought, holding on to the promise of something that may never come instead of holding to the here and now.

Directors Sarah Watts and Mark Slutsky build the tension between the two masterfully, each little action and gesture adding up. By the time it pays off, it feels absolutely intense. It feels particularly cathartic, and it also feels like as if we're intruding on these two.

Baptisms are usually acts of initiation, something that purifies the body and introduces a new member into the congregation. In one particularly exquisite scene, such an act serves instead as an acknowledgement of the 'sin' of loving, the establishment of a bond that doesn't go away completely even if things have irrevocably changed.

QCinema 2022: Triangle of Sadness (opening film)

 

In the middle of Ruben Ostlund's Triangle of Sadness, a wealthy guest of the multimillion dollar yacht where the film takes place tells the staff member attending to her to change places and luxuriate in the pool in her place. To the guest, it might seem like a gesture of magnanimity or altruism, but the strained expression on the staff member's face says otherwise. It is a hidden act of cruelty, even: an act meant more to assuage guilt rather than offer kindness. Because after experiencing the things people like her could only dream of, when the tables are turned and hierarchies are upended, they eventually return to their menial jobs, washing sails that don't exist or cleaning up someone else's vomit. This fantasy thus becomes a stern reminder: I will give you a taste of this life, but in the end, you should know your place.

Ostlund is no stranger to jokes, as a significant portion of his films riff on the inherent absurdity of human behavior. This film feels like a smorgasbord of his greatest hits: on the pretentiousness of art, where various nonsense words decorate the background of a fashion show; on the fragility of masculinity, either through who gets to pay for dinner or the act of 'hunting' a docile animal; on the concept of "equality," as viewed through the eyes of the privileged. There are hierarchies everywhere, ladders all the way down. As we go deeper into the depths of the yacht, we see the ship divided yet again, with the glaring whiteness of the upper decks all the more evident. Bodies are aesthetically judged according to their worth, yet even at the top, an unattractive body can bypass that given enough money.

Ostlund constructs his joke through three segments: the first two are just the setup for the punchline. In the first, Carl (Harris Dickinson), a male model reaching the absolutely geriatric age of 26, negotiates through his relationship with his supermodel girlfriend with the grace of a drunk hippopotamus. Their relationship seems to have some level of intimacy but there is a transactional aspect of it, to (in their words) increase their Instagram follower counts. Carl is obsessed with the notion of equality, in this first part we see or hear of equality in one form or the other like it is a mantra. In the second half the food chain is established: at the top there is absolute power, where even in the face of irrationality, it all can be overridden with enough money. "Equality" has no place here.

And indeed, Ostlund's punchline is there can be no true equality in a society like ours; despite whatever drunken ramblings on theory and half hearted protestations about the sorry state of the world, theory and praxis are entirely different things. During the film's exquisite third act the scenario from the first part of this review plays itself out again, but there is a sense of permanency this time. There is no going back to cleaning vomit or washing the decks after the joyride. In the previous example, there is the conscious notion of a return to "normalcy," or whatever insanity represents the status quo. In the third act of the film, that notion does not exist for one of the characters, while for the others it is merely a temporary arrangement until they can go back to their privileged lives. I don't see it as an act of opportunism, but an act of claiming what one feels is rightfully theirs. And even here, in a society where each is judged according to their useful contributions to society, some people are still more equal than others.

A Deep Dive into Security Academy

 

To be a security guard is one of the most underappreciated and overlooked jobs in the country. Often made to work long hours for insultingly low pay (on average around 15,000 pesos a month, if Google is to be believed), trainees often deal with unruly customers, trespassers, or in rare cases, criminal elements. In the two years since the pandemic started, they, along with health workers, food service workers and others make up a portion of the people who worked at the frontlines of the battle against COVID.

Now it's nice and all for filmmakers to shine a light on certain topics, and the topic of the security guard making an honest living is certainly a valid one. The problem is, "advocacy films" seldom live up to their name: they are shoddily made, misrepresent or mischaracterize the advocacy they are supposedly advocating for, and often miss the point of the whole exercise entirely.

Security Academy, a 2020 advocacy film that seems to have been put in the backburner due to the COVID pandemic, is one such film. I had my expectations very low, but holy shit, this film keeps on surpassing my rock bottom expectations by the minute. I wondered why at first, but I recognized some of the names in the credits, especially one Dyzal Damun, famed filmmaker responsible for such enduring classics as DOTA: Nakakabaliw and Kamandag ni Venus. If you are familiar with those two films, congratulations, you have a bit of an idea what we're getting into. To its credit I have never watched a film more ironically entertaining than this in the past year. Let me show you why.

I. The Security of Not Slipping on a Banana on the Beach

The film starts out with four people who enter a security guard academy to receive training: Clinton (Jeric Raval) is a law student who wants a side hustle. In one of the introductory scenes of the film, he is lounging on the beach where he ostensibly lives when a woman approaches him for one thing or another. Clinton starts to flirt with her, saying that he likes "extra rice kinds of ladies" and the woman walks away. Clinton's wife (Mutya Johanna Datul) comes and asks him what the fuck was that all about and Clinton kinda gives an unsatisfying answer. Meanwhile, the woman is walking on the beach, ON SAND, when she steps on a BANANA PEEL ON THE SAND AND SLIPS. THE BANANA PEEL IS CLEARLY BURIED IN THE SAND. IT HAS NO WAY OF SLIPPING. THIS WOMAN SHOULD BY NO MEANS SLIP IN THE NAME OF ISAAC NEWTON AND ALL THAT IS HOLY. This character exists only for the single purpose of flirting with Clinton, SLIPPING ON A BANANA PEEL EMBEDDED IN THE SAND (something that is impossible by the laws of nature), and disappearing forever. How insignificant we truly are in the vast grandness of the universe, mere notes in the cosmic fugue.

As the woman nurses her hurt pride, a bystander passes by and laughs at her. This is true kino.

Gerry (Jake Rines) has a girlfriend/significant other who for some reason has the voice of a woman twice her age. Take note that this actress is probably just as old as Jeric Raval's daughter AJ. As an aside, let me get this out of the way first: the sound in this film (especially in the first 30 minutes) is fucking atrocious, as if it were recorded  from a counterfeit Chatty Cathy doll from 1965. Gerry's GF's change in voice reminds me of bold star Joyce Jimenez, whose actual voice is less Gloria Guida and more Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Now you can argue that this is actually her real voice and John, you're just being an asshole (a voice-ist?) but let us put a pin on it for the moment and get back to that later.

Rolando (Aaron Concepcion of Culion fame) is the son of a banana cue saleswoman. For some reason, his ADR voice has a weird accent in the first 30 mins, like if aliens cloned James Reid but his emotion processing center wasn't replicated properly. His voice changes later on to what I assume is his natural voice, which tells me that these goons lost the sound of the entire first half of the film and had to redub everything because filmmaking is hard. He also has the most peculiar acting range of the four leads, which goes from "furrowed brows" to "furrowed brows, but like 5% more." He tries to borrow tuition money for the security academy from his parents, but they are both broke. Rolando, understandably, furrows his brows, but just on cue, a guy with a turban shows up and offers to loan some money. There are some very dark skinned Indians in the world, but this guy looks like a non-Indian man (African maybe?) they picked up on the street. He's not in the credits (I think) so I have no way to verify if I'm right or wrong.

Armando (Oliver Lacson) is the fourth guy. He doesn't really have a lot to do, but since he's the fourth guy, I'm including him here anyway.

The four security guard aspirants eventually make it into... the SECURITY ACADEMY.

II. The Security of Not Getting Breast Pumped while Unconscious

The actual advocacy part that shows how security guards get their training takes up only the first 1/3-1/2 of the film. This part mostly lets viewers like you and me know what aspiring security guards go through to become "legit."

Most of the people involved in this second part are most probably non actors and are staff or faculty of the security academy, because you see in them the same things you see with untrained non-actors: awkward pauses, stilted dialogue, a facial expression that's half uncertain what to do next, half anticipating the next line.

One particular instructor, a Lieutenant Carpio, teaches our eager cadets about security in an armored van. Anyone familiar with the job knows that it's extremely hazardous. To demonstrate this hazard but sadly without the resources for an OHP or a PowerPoint presentation, he draws a cartoony caricature of an armored van on the chalkboard behind him. Well, we don't actually see him draw it, it just magically appears behind him on the next cut.

here's what the drawing kinda looked like

Another instructor, a Lieutenant Macusa, teaches our cadets about various laws and general orders for security guard things. That's all and good, but she also teaches the cadets CPR for the rare occasion that a bystander faints, has no pulse or is unable to breathe. She asks one of the female cadets to help her demonstrate, because this place doesn't have a budget and training dummies are out of the question. She correctly tells the class to first assess the patient, try to wake them up and check their pulse and breathing. She then proceeds to demonstrate this:

thanks to medscape for this photo

Now what do you call this? In my training or experience, we call these chest compressions (or less commonly chest pumps). Our valiant instructor, perhaps urged on by a Freudian subconscious urge, refers to this maneuver as "breast pumps," as if the participant cadet was a lactating woman eager to feed her newborn child and each pump would squirt milk, fountain-like, from her nipples as she is revived. I had to listen very closely in case I misheard, but it was definitely "breast pump."

She then moves on to demonstrate mouth to mouth resuscitation, adding quite astutely to wipe the mouth of the victim first before doing the maneuver. However, perhaps due to mutual shyness, she doesn't actually do the mouth to mouth, opting only to move very close to the other person's face and blowing. Now, you and I know what's supposed to be done, and I'm sure the good instructor, sans the earlier misnomer, knows what's supposed to be done, but these cadets might not know that. Imagine poor Lola Carmela fainting in the supermarket due to an arrythmia and a blameless guard, going only on what he learned, does the proper CPR steps before just kinda blowing on a poor old lady's face.

We get a short interlude after the CPR lesson to cut to Gerry's friends. Nothing valuable is gleaned from this except for the fact that Gerry's GF-with-the-old-lady-voice is in love with him...? And entire cuts of the scene are out of focus, as if the intention was that our cinematic POV was through the eyes of a 80 year old grandpa with severe cataracts.

We are also shown other learning activities such as marching in formation - done in a basketball court, no less! I guess the security academy doesn't have a lot of space for facilities so they reuse the area for marching drills. Or maybe this is the barangay basketball court and they're practicing there? Who knows. Let's put a pin on this to come back to later.

Of course, every guard has to undergo self defense training, so they partner with a local martial arts dojo to practice some moves against perps carrying knives. Sadly, we don't see this pan out as most of the baddies in this movie carry guns, but hey, it's always prudent to be prepared just in case Timmy Terrorist has a fancy knife in his pants as a last resort.

The firing range is also featured, and by firing range I mean a room crowded with people, like 2 "firing stations" and with cardboard targets. They fire various weapons, even a shotgun, which I thought wasn't allowed but in certain firing ranges they actually do that stuff.

In between these sequences are fuzzy establishing shots of buildings which I'm guessing are shots of the security academy, but since Angel Film Productions probably doesn't have money for drones, they look like they were shot from a distance, using a Nokia 7650 in 240p resolution and zoomed in for maximum shitty effect.

The four eventually end their didactic education (or at least pass the basic education part of their training) and are assigned a place to guard - something like an OJT. This is where things get a bit weird.

III. The Security of Not Getting Into a Firefight in a Supermarket

Clinton, 'Mando, 'Lando and Gerry (and a token fifth guard, Josefa) are assigned to a supermarket. One might think five security guards in one shift to guard a supermarket that's no bigger than a basketball court is overkill, but there's a reason for this. Not five minutes after starting the day, a suspicious white van enters the frame. The lead robber, played by Archi Adamos, goes over the plan with his goons.

They quickly incapacitate Armando, who hilariously hangs over the disabled access railing like a wet blanket, and enter the supermarket, where they promptly enter into a gunfight with the remaining security guards. For some reason, Clinton kicks a trash can behind him as the fight starts. Why? It wasn't even blocking his way! Someone's going to have to clean that up later, Clinton. Along with the dead bodies, of course. lol.

This is probably a good time to note that the people involved in making this movie are mostly known for making action movies in the late nineties to the early 2000s, which in terms of Filipino cinema, wasn't the best time for that specific genre. This film's director, Karlo Montero, is perhaps best known for 2002's Huwag Mong Takasan ang Batas, which starred Rommel Padilla (which isn't even B-tier as far as Padillas are concerned IMO) and Ynez Veneracion. It's obvious from the latter half of the film that there is an obvious nostalgia for those kinds of films, and it shows. Security guards don't often see a lot of action, but for these four, action is pretty much all they're going to see. And this is just their OJT!

The robbers tie up poor Josefa, leading her to waddle around like a duck in a uniform, while Clinton and the others 360 no scope the baddies with their shotguns. Several people (and various grocery products) get riddled with bullets. One unfortunate casualty of the firefight is a shopping lady in her mid twenties to early thirties who, as it turns out, is voiced by the same middle aged to old lady who voiced Gerry's GF!! I hope you gave that lady double pay.

The robbery attempt ends with frequent cuts to a crying cashier (who I think is related to one of the security guards?) Clinton headshotting Archi Adamos and Gerry getting shot in the shoulder. The police FINALLY arrive, randomly arresting a guy in shorts who is probably one of the robbers (they didn't exactly ask any questions), but who knows for sure.

While Gerry convalesces in a hospital, Mando and Lando get assigned to a warehouse and Clinton... just chills on the beach. Maybe his law school is on the beach. I'd go to a beach law school... if I wanted to take up law. That would be nice, taking a short swim after the prof grills you on constitutional law.

Old lady voice woman visits Gerry at the hospital and he doesn't speak. Oh no! Was there brain damage? Poor Gerry! Nope, he was just sulking. We find that this entire film takes place in Rizal, which I guess cuts down on production costs or something. There's also a "comedic" sequence later on about Gerry coming home from the hospital and some lady beating up what looks like a homeless person, but it's easily the least funny part of the film. Jokes occur naturally, like a woman slipping on a banana embedded in the sand. Yes, I will not let that go.

Meanwhile, Lando and Mando are getting weird vibes from the warehouse they are assigned to...

IV. Security From Not Discovering Drugs In The Warehouse You Are Guarding

Mando isn't too interested to investigate further, but Lando isn't having any of it. In the night, he Solid Snakes his way through the warehouse where he bumps into a car tire. A black bag falls down and finds ILLEGAL DRUGS INSIDE!! Apparently their boss, Mr. Lim (or is it Mr. Ang?) is a drug lord. Lando's Metal Gear Solid shit is gaining dividends.

So now, I have a question for you. You find ILLEGAL DRUGS in the place you are patrolling. You know illegal activities are afoot. What is the FIRST THING that you do next?

A. Call the PDEA and let the police handle things

B. Get into a shootout and get the baddies yourself

C. Join the gang and probably earn more than your security guard job... in exchange for your dignity

D. Get help from your friends, including that Indian loanshark who may actually be African

Do you know what this film does? NONE OF THE ABOVE! He does nothing until the next day and talks to his fellow security guards, where they tell him to just pray and be careful ("magdasal na lang at mag-ingat.")

Okay, I'm being a little disingenuous here. He eventually does letter A, but probably only after lots of prayer. So why have the meeting with fellow guards in the first place? Well, maybe it's because during the PDEA operation, they make SECURITY GUARDS the vanguard force. Involving security guards in a police operation is pretty ludicrous, but that's not all.

Mr. Ang and Mr. Lim, his associate are arguing about various money matters. I think Mr. Ang owns the warehouse since the credits state that the warehouse is named "Mr. Ang's Warehouse." lol. This is made even more convoluted when during the ensuing SNAFU and firefight with SECURITY GUARDS and 1-2 PDEA agents, Mr. Ang is referred to by his goons as Mr. Lim. I don't really expect script continuity from these dudes but Jesus Christ on a pogo stick, this takes the cake.

Both are caught and Mr. Lim tries to finagle with the PDEA agents but he is quickly rebuffed. The druglord is arrested and the security guards save the day again.

V. Security From Not Getting Robbed While Taking a Shit

While Mando and Lando are gun-fighting drug dealers, Clinton's wife rises from the ocean like a Kraken, but if the Kraken was very pretty and actually won Miss Supranational 2013. In the shot the sun is still up, or it is at the very least sunset. In the very next shot it is clearly night, as if two hours have passed. So she walked two hours to the resort where Clinton was? Maybe it's some sort of solstice where the night comes quickly. The two then engage in small talk, where Clinton tries forcefully to feed his wife fruit even if her mouth is already full (and vice versa.) This sequence is completely irrelevant to the rest of the story. Or is it...?

While Clinton stuffs his face with fruit (doing little to no law schooling), Gerry is back on the job, guarding a pawnshop. For some reason a tarpaulin with the name of the Pawnshop is attached to the metal shutters. This is perhaps as an attempt to say "this is a pawnshop" without paying for painting an empty building. Otherwise it would be weird. How would the shop open in the morning? Would the tarp just slide back in there when they open the shutters?

Just like clockwork, in the adjacent lot a group of robbers attempts to dig into the pawnshop and steal stuff. These robbers are filmed crouching next to a brick wall to simulate them digging into the pawnshop, even though its obvious that they're above ground (or at least in a bright tunnel). Meanwhile, Gerry takes a shit up top. He is alerted to the robbers' nefarious activities when the cup of coffee he placed outside of the toilet shatters. For some reason he didn't hear, you know, the sound of pickaxes and tools chipping away at the rock below him.

Gerry catches them in the act and arrests all of them, even letting one robber handcuff himself to his associate. He calls the police, followed by stock footage of... an ambulance??? AN AMERICAN AMBULANCE, AT THAT?? Is this a butterfly effect thing where Gerry taking a shit triggers a medical emergency in Idaho????????

VI. Security From Not Getting Swarmed on The Beach by....

For its climax, Security Academy asks us, what exactly can a security guard do?

In what is probably the same beach Clinton is staying in (assigned to?) a woman named Mrs. Dee is being extorted by goons for protection money. Mrs. Dee isn't having any of it, because Mrs. Dee is an upright citizen. The goons swear their revenge.

Mrs. Dee's first course of action would be to contact the authorities, and to be fair that's exactly what she does. What's the police's first course of action then when 20 goons arrive on three boats on the beach? Humor me on this one.

A. Assemble a force of police and confront the goons

B. Assemble a force of police and get the navy/marines involved

C. Intercept the boats in the sea and arrest the goons

D. Assemble a force of police and SWAT, but don't use them yet. Instead, gather a force of 20ish SECURITY GUARDS to act as a fucking VANGUARD FORCE.

If you chose D, then congratulations, you are correct. Unfortunately your IQ has probably gone down a few points after reading this. I'm sorry.

The pirates/extortionists get into a protracted firefight with FUCKING SECURITY GUARDS. ON THE BEACH! HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A SECURITY GUARD ON A BEACH?? And there are like 15-20 of them!! How many resorts are these people guarding?? Was Clinton assigned here or was he living here, or both??? Why have so many security guards in the first place? And why are they putting OJT-ers in the line of fire????

One of the security guards catches a goon and rear naked chokes his Nur Misuari looking ass out. I forgot which one of the four knocks out this counterfeit Nur Misuari looking motherfucker because I as laughing too hard at the absurdity of it all.

It's certainly not Clinton, since he's outside with this exchange with a pirate (and I paraphrase) :

Goon: Wait don't shoot! My rifle's run out of ammo!

Clinton: Okay, catch this (chucks his shotgun at the goon)

Goon: haha you fool! *fires the shotgun but it has no bullets*

Clinton: Eto saluhin mo to (Here, catch this) *takes out his pistol and shoots the goon*

It's comedy gold, punctuated by when one of the police guys shoots a grenade launcher at one of the boats and explodes it with a cheap green screen animation.

VII. Security From Extended Epilogues

Clinton, Mando, Lando and Gerry are awarded by the security academy or something. I guess their OJT training has ended. And by OJT the filmmakers of this hilarious shit probably mean Obliterate & Jail Terrorists.

They do the awarding ceremony in the same barangay basketball court/backyard court where they did marching drills earlier. There's an awkward series of cuts where the film seems to be waiting for the MC to start talking, and they just kinda cut back and forth to awkwardly anticipatory faces instead of editing it out.

We then see the general in charge of the security academy eating in a cafeteria, where he meets Clinton, Mando and Gerry. It's soon apparent that some time has passed and Clinton is back in law school and either Mando or Gerry (or both) have moved on to other professions. The general laments that he should be treating the three (+1) to a more lavish dinner. Yeah no shit, especially when these four literally ended an illegal drug operation and participated in no less than 3 gunfights!!! You should be treating these four to AT LEAST a buffet! 

Some time later, Mando, Lando and Gerry visit Clinton, whose wife is visiting a doctor. The implication is that she's expecting a baby and not endometrial cancer, just to be clear. Clinton's also become a lawyer, and the four discuss where to celebrate and eat out. Instead of a restaurant or a cafeteria, the three convince Clinton to go to the gym at the security academy. Much to no one's surprise, he is greeted by a surprise party. The end.

As the credits rolled, featuring a song that is best described as "a drunk dude who doesn't exactly remember the lyrics, singing karaoke at 1am," I thought of what the film stood for. Being a security guard can be a noble profession, and those who take on the task can be heroes. But perhaps Security Academy could have honored them by showing how they act out their heroism in less ridiculous, more grounded ways: by helping people in need, by keeping the places they guard safe, by simply providing for their families while being grossly overworked and underpaid. Not by choking out some dude in a firefight on a beach.